Jozsef Mindszenty

Jozsef Mindszenty (29 March 1892-6 May 1975) was Archbishop of Esztergom and Prince Primate of Hungary from 2 October 1945 to 18 December 1973, succeeding Jusztinian Gyorgy Seredi and preceding Laszlo Lekai. Mindszenty was a monarchist and personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary, leading to his arrest by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party during World War II and his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Hungarian communist government from 1949 to 1956. He died in exile in Vienna in 1975.

Biography
Jozsef Pehm was born in Csehimindszent, Austria-Hungary in 1892, and he was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1915 and appointed Bishop of Veszprem in 1944. He was a staunch and outspoken opponent of the Nazis and of their deportations of Jews to concentration camps. As Bishop fo Esztergom from 1945, he continued his fight against totalitarianism in his vocal opposition to the increasingly communist regime. In 1948, he was charged with currency offenses (he had used Western money for his churches) and sentenced to life imprisonment, which was commuted to house arrest. He was released during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but was forced to seek refuge in the US embassy when Soviet forces entered Budapest. He was only able to leave the building to go abroad in 1971, following an agreement between the Vatican and the government. He died in Vienna, Austria in 1975 at the age of 83.